


Seventh Moon

by ChaoteToTheCore



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, Beholding Avatar Eric Delano, Child Eric Delano, Child Gerard Keay, Gen, Gerard Keay Has EDS | Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, Ghosts, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Incest, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Monster Gerard Keay, POV Child
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:27:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26294869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChaoteToTheCore/pseuds/ChaoteToTheCore
Summary: hungry ghost festivalhell note ashes takenby the night wind~John Tiong Chunghoo
Kudos: 7





	1. Fragile

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Please Don’t Eat the Flowers](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24794887) by [Sloane](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sloane/pseuds/Sloane). 

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _He dreams of empty skies full of eyes, and foolish monarchs who desperately claw for crowns of blood. ~~ **Doesn't she get it? She's lost her head! Can't wear a crown without a head. Ha! Why, then it's just become a noose!**~~_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A certain detail near the end is inspired by Chapter 5 in "Please Don't Eat the Flowers" by Sloane. Give them a read!
> 
> Relevant Tags: [Gerard Keay] [Child Gerard Keay] [Gerard Keay Has EDS | Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome] [Monster Gerard Keay] [Implied/Referenced Child Abuse]

When he was small, Gerry fell down the stairs.

He misses the first step, and tumbles down, down, down and everything is spiraling around him. He doesn't scream, or Mum just doesn't care. His arm looks the wrong way around. He bends it back the right way. He does scream, then. Mum doesn't care.

He doesn't wear a cast, and the bruises he goes to bed with are gone by morning. He'd never been to the doctor before, and he still hasn't been. There's no story to be found, did he ever really fall? 

_He's falling, falling, twisting, and stars are blinking around him. He basks in confusion that is not his own._

When he was small, Gerry fell down the stairs. A few years later, he fell down the stairs again.

He is running from yet another monster, hunting yet another book, and falling down yet more stairs. At the end, he lays sprawled on cold concrete, stars blurrily swirling above him, scraped knees and hands stinging in the chilling air, and warm not-blood pooling around him. None around his head, for all that matters.

It doesn't matter much. He makes it home with less vertigo than he'd left it with, and thanks no one that Mum isn't around.

_He dreams of empty skies full of eyes, and foolish monarchs who desperately claw for crowns of blood. ~~ **Doesn't she get it? She's lost her head! Can't wear a crown without a head. Ha! Why, then it's just become a noose!**~~_

He wakes up with both hands on his neck. The bruises stick around for weeks, this time.

It's years from even then, that he thinks he hears someone say 'You should get that checked out.' Not to him ~~never to him~~ , but it was probably sound advice anyway, and if it wasn't… Well, it would be a novel experience.

And novel it is, breathing the cloying scent of hospital, chewing on his third lolli in an hour, and watching the good doctor stare slackly through her papers. He bounces his knee and solidly cracks the candy in his teeth. She smiles brightly at him, straightens her papers, and proudly announces his clean bill of health. She adjusts her glasses and walks right out, some odd tune on her breath. _~~All as expected, Mr. Keay, you're in perfect health! Well, could stand a few more greens, but couldn't we all?~~_

Gerry notes the spirals drifting from her pages, and promptly looks away for his own sake.

He's out of the hospital when a body cracks against the ground with a sickening thud. He doesn't stop himself from looking this time, and notes that her glasses are a very pleasant red, and they contrast nicely with her green eyes. He notes the swirls in her blood and hair and bloody hair, and stumbles away, an odd tune swirling about the air.

_He's falling, falling, and green eyes gaze cheerfully, red glasses melting into stars into sound into swirls._

He doesn't visit a doctor after that. Not until it's really too late, and he's falling, falling, falling asleep, and the surgeon is slice, slice, slicing into him. And if he had sooner, would they have found anything? Likely not. Likely he'd be one of those patients, whose sad stories pepper social media. The doctor says there's no problem, and the problem kills the patient.

Likely, Gerry already is such a patient.

_He's waiting on a bench outside ~~a~~ THE hospital, that hospital, and the night sky is filled with blinking eyes. Of course this is how it's always been. He looks into a tar-black puddle of water, and notes that his central eye looks a bit cross with him. A hand lands lightly on his shoulder. Ah, it's the good doctor! With her cheerful, vacant, swirling eyes and dripping, vibrant, curling red hair, and cut flesh showing just a tasteful amount of bone. ~~You bout ready, then?~~_

The surgeon doesn't scream when he cuts to the source and sees the tumor. He doesn't scream, but it's close. Eyes in unusual, unexpected places tend to do that to one. Gerry blinks a lidless eye at the surgeon. The surgeon heaves air. The team carefully works to remove the odd tumor.

Gerry doesn't wake up. The surgeon doesn't go mad.

It's a bit boring to do the same thing over like that.

A cheerful woman with red glasses and damp hair sits on a bench outside the hospital, waiting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This work is a promptfill for the September 2020 Prompt Set by @downwithwritersblock on tumblr.


	2. Caged One(s)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eric lives in a comfortable house where the road meets the woods, and the woods meet the water. He lives in a comfortable family, with a sister, a father, and a grandfather. His mother is gone. She died soon after giving birth to him (after coming back home), but everyone says she left. They like to talk like she's alive, but he Knows she's under the oak tree in the back. She sleeps there, and he sleeps in the corner of his sister's room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spongebob Narrator Voice: _Much later~_
> 
> Relevant Tags: [Eric Delano] [Beholding Avatar Eric Delano] [Child Eric Delano] [Ghosts] [Implied/Referenced Child Abuse] [Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse] [Implied/Referenced Incest] [Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con] [POV Child]

Eric lives in a comfortable house where the road meets the woods, and the woods meet the water. He lives in a comfortable family, with a sister, a father, and a grandfather. His mother is gone. She died soon after giving birth to him (after coming back home), but everyone says she left. They like to talk like she's alive, but he Knows she's under the oak tree in the back. She sleeps there, and he sleeps in the corner of his sister's room.

Eric's a small boy, so very tiny, and he Knows the safest path to jump around on the piled rocks. He Knows how to skip stones farther than even his older sister. He Knows the answer in maths, even if not how to get there. His father sees him, jumping around, and doesn't let him go back to his precious rocks for the next few years. He's _too small_ apparently, although he Knows he's _not_.

There's a child that could look like him, sometimes, if only they didn't look like someone else. He Knows they're incomplete, waiting for their ca-ta-lyst. (Word of the week, it makes him think of ca-ta-clysm). They lean against the tall fence of their house, or the school's broken slide, or even the empty desk that seems to always be placed next to Eric's (despite being in the middle of the room). They're always sitting, with a lolling head and glassy, half-lidded eyes that makes him think of a broken puppet laid to rest. They're dressed like one, he thinks, with black jean overalls and mo-no-chrome stripes on their shirt. There's a lighter taped to their hand. It looks very old and he can never make out what the branding says.

They seem to like listening to stories, _his_ stories, the stories he Knows about the teacher and the teacher's pet, about the jovial old woman with silent daughters, about the jokester policeman whose jokes always hurt, about his grandfather whose games are never very fun. (The stories he doesn't yet know are horrible.) Their grey eyes seem to clear a bit, their posture seems to straighten a little, their energy seems to change. Like they're a puppet being restrung, looking forward to performing once again.

He's telling a story to them, the one about Ms. Evans and Joy, when Mr. Nichols from the class next door interrupts him. Mr. Nichols has a weird look on his face (as adults are wont to do) and asks if he could start the story over him while he sits down.

Eric is excited. Most adults don't like his stories. He was worried because Mr. Nichols is certainly an adult, but he listened attentively all the way through! He even asks if he has more stories (Eric always does), his hands holding the edges of his seat so tightly that his knuckles have turned white. Eric wonders how excited _he_ must be for that to happen.

Mr. Nichols says that he knows some people who would be _very_ interested in hearing his stories, and would he mind coming to the office with him to wait for them? Yes, Eric would like to go. Mr. Nichols' friend has a very gentle voice. He must have rushed straight from work, because he's still in police uniform. Eric tells him the story of Ms. Evans and Joy, and more stories when he hasn't gotten bored of Eric yet.

Eric says his grandfather's games aren't fun, and that his sister didn't like them either, when she was still around. Mr. Nichols' friend gets very stiff after that, and carefully asks for that story.

* * *

Eric is so very small, and his grandmother is so very ancient. He has her grey eyes, he's told. (True.) He's odd like she was, but she made it well enough and so can he, he's told. (True.) She held him once and never again, he's told. (Well…) He thinks that last one is wrong because even if her shaky, wrinkled hands pass through him more often than not, it's the thought that counts. Everyone says so.

She opens her mouth and roaches crawl out. She looks pained. Eric Knows she's sorry she can't tell him anything properly. That's alright, there are plenty of other stories to find.

* * *

The woman (because Eric Knows, even if everyone is calling her Mr.) has told him to get everything he wants to keep from his things. She says to limit it to two bags. Eric's not sure what he could keep that would bring it up to two bags. His best Friend sits on his bed, as present as they're ever not, with a black book on their lap. Eric recognizes it, because it's the one from grandfather's room. Eric wonders why the policemen didn't take it when they took everything else. Eric packs it up, and he needs a second bag after all.

He says goodbye to his mother and sister by the oak tree as he's leaving, and Mr. Nichols' friend is still looking at the tree when Eric's gone.

He's brought to a house run by an older woman with a voice like static, and he's told to not make a mess. He looks at the buckets catching dripwater and doesn't think he could make anything in the house more of a mess, but he doesn't say so. He Knows that would be rude, and Mémère has transplanted herself to the rocking chair in this house. He hates being rude in front of Mémère.

Mémère keeps trying to tell him something, and he thinks his Friend is too. They keep sitting with the black book on their lap, staring at the fireplace. He keeps putting the book back at the bottom of his bag. They start sitting on the porch, then down the street, until one night they're leaning against the oak tree. His mother and sister stare at him, tears never falling from their faces. Mémère is on the porch, rocking. She has no tears left. Eric Knows she's screaming, mouth sewn neatly shut.

His Friend offers their left hand, the one with the lighter. Eric accepts it.

His new foster mother finds him with a pile of ash and a broken lighter. She shakes him, screaming, and Eric knows that she was worried about him.

* * *

Eric lives in a rundown house squished between two other rundown houses. The roof leaks sometimes, and they put buckets underneath. His foster mother is about as rundown as her house, but she's always clean and she always makes sure that her children and house are too.

Eric had a mother and a sister. There's a picture on the mantel, with just the three of them. The other two don't matter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooooo been a while, huh?
> 
> I had this going a couple different ways before I wrote this entire chapter as-is within a couple hours. Just now. 🙃
> 
> There is not a single generation of this family that will remain un-traumatized. I think I made it fairly obvious who Friend is, but go ahead and tell me who you think it is/could be in the comments!


End file.
